Japanese react calmly to latest tsunami warning

NATALIE OBIKO PEARSONAssociated Press Writer

Published Thursday, January 20, 2005

TOKYO -- Japan issued a tsunami warning Wednesday after a strong earthquake struck off its coast, its first such warning since last month's tsunami disaster in southern Asia. But officials were quick to reassure residents that the wave was small and would not cause damage.

Officials in Japan's Izu island chain, the area closest to the 6.8-magnitude quake, told people to stay away from the water but took no further steps.

"We knew the waves weren't big enough to warrant an evacuation order," said Takeshi Iwata, a policeman on Oshima island, the largest in the chain.

The advisory by Japan's higly advanced warning system proved largely accurate. The warning -- issued by the Meteorological Agency moments after the afternoon quake -- said the tsunami would reach a maximum of 20 inches. As it turned out, waves 4 to 12 inches high were recorded among the Izu islands, the agency said later.

Within about two hours after the quake, the agency lifted all warnings.

Officials at the Meteorological Agency say such advisories are standard practice and are not intended to alarm but rather prevent the spread of misinformation before panic sets in.

In Japan, the agency reports most water disturbances caused by seismic activity -- an advisory for barely perceptible changes in water level, a cautionary advisory for tsunamis below 20 inches and a tsunami warning for anything larger, an agency official said.

In the Indian Ocean disaster, a massive earthquake off Indonesia caused a tsunami more than 20 feet high that killed more than 160,000 people in 11 nations.

Miki Shirai, an employee at a hotel in Motomachi town on Oshima, about 73 miles south of Tokyo, said Wednesday's warning reassured people. "We could all hear the advisory," Shirai said. "We knew there was no cause for alarm."

"People responded pretty calmly. There was no kind of panic whatsoever," said Katsueki Natsuyagi, a watchman at the town hall in Oshima.

The response contrasted starkly with the reaction to a panic in Chile early Monday over a false tsunami report. The report sent nearly 15,000 people fleeing their homes in the city of Conception, south of the capital, and caused at least two elderly people to die of heart attacks.

Officials were trying to determine who started the alarm.

Acting President Jose Miguel Insulza called it "a tragic joke." Inital reports said three young men apparently ran through a beach near Concepcion, shouting that a massive wave was coming.